HappySoda’s New Shirt
January 11th, 2008
I remember why I don’t change themes that often, but sometimes you just need a new song. It’s a pain, especially when going to a theme that’s a bit more minimal in its design purpose than the previous one. I miss the big footer of the previous theme. I also miss the extensive refinement of it. On the other hand, I just found this new one so pretty that I felt like a change. The smart thing would have been to just leave the cosmetics of the blog alone and do other stuff, like sleep, or talk to real people.
There’s still a list of stuff I have to do to get this new theme up to what I want, such as what to do with the Tag Cloud, put it on a separate page, stick in the archive, or sidebar it? Hell, the default Tag Cloud widget doesn’t show up right. I want to try and figure it out, even if that’s not the way I’m going to go.
The first five or six months that I had tags on my blog, hardly anyone clicked on tags, but once they became a standard part of WordPress, I think bloggers that didn’t use them began to understand the benefit of tags and started using them as a way to dig through a site. I am allergic to sidebars that stretch on to infinity tough, so I wonder if I can get away with removing category links from the sidebar. The “Figure Review” category link gets a lot of action.
Still undecided is the RSS feeds to your sites. Based on my outgoing stats, I don’t think they drove much traffic to anyone. Most outgoing actions were prompted by links in comments than the RSS feeds. I am aware of their value for search engines though, so I think I’ll put them on their own page. The benefit there is being able to display the feed to more of you…might go the SimplePie route for that, but I can smell that will be a hassle for the PHP challenged.
Anyway, what do you think about this theme?
18 Responses to “HappySoda’s New Shirt”
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January 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
The new theme is simple yet unique. And I kinda like the contrast between the sidebar and the post section.
January 11th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
A unique change, I have to say I like it.
The important thing is you like it and it freshens the view for you so game on!
January 11th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Just thought of this now, but ever think of maybe hacking at the php for the sidebar and adding a tag-cloud element for it? The tag cloud was pretty nifty on your last site, so it could merit a look?
Another option is making a dedicated page just to your tag cloud, as well, so people can click in there to nav through the blog posts. I know I will miss going through your ‘highly recommended’ tag, Hikaru <3
January 11th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I like this one better than the old one
but I like the old white more 
January 12th, 2008 at 12:57 am
There’s a bunch of things wrong, so the archives don’t display correctly right now.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I agree with double and JF, I’ve never seen a theme like this. I think the sidebar looks a bit big, but thats for your picture on the top of it I guess. I tend to like things a bit centered lol, but I will get used to it.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:51 am
My laptop is 1280×800 and lucky for me the main column is centered.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:35 am
I absolutely love the new layout! Functionality-wise it is indeed a bit simpler, but aesthetically I haven’t seen this classic left nav panel since 95! Love the modern trendy colors too.
January 12th, 2008 at 7:19 am
I like this new theme, simple and unique
January 12th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Lovely contrast. My eyesight is split at two directions. XD
January 12th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Part of the reason I went with a layout that pushes the header over to the top of the sidebar is it brings the content section up higher. For blog posts, it doesn’t matter a whole lot, but I noticed when browsing through the picture gallery on a 1280×800 monitor, the pictures were almost always partially below the fold, which meant having to scroll to see the full image. Now with an 800 vertical resolution, a gallery visitor doesn’t have to scroll to see the photo.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
It’s a very interesting skin although I have to agree the side bar looks a bit bigger and my laptop also is at 1280×800. One question where did you get the top pictures above HappySoda from? They kinda remind me of Shunya and Last Exile art
January 12th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
It’s definitely a wide sidebar at 390 pixels.
The header line art is Range Murata from his “Spheres” collection of Last Exile character illustration work, which is a very nice book of line art. A low-res version of this image is easy enough to find on a Google search.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:02 am
I’ve been thinking about changing the theme of my blog as well. This one looks very elegant, nice job!
Why are the prime numbers highlighted in green, by the way?
January 13th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Haha…that’s funny, until now my responses were on prime number counts. This one was a premium template, but the person who designed it has a couple of free ones worth checking out. Check the meta section of the sidebar for the link to his site.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Really nice theme…i like the colors and i think the sidebar have a good size… and can i see that work eith widgets and flirck photo album…excellent…
Again, congratulations for this change… is fresh, nice and very elegant…
January 17th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
I kinda like the old black-grey tarski theme. But this looks neat ^^
January 18th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Tarski is a great theme and the guys who continually update the code for it are the model for theme support. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was for me to move away from it.